Reflections: Age of Arousal

Some of us got together at the Factory Theatre to catch Age of Arousal, and I think the general consensus was that it was pretty awesome. By playwright Linda Griffiths, it’s a recent play set in the Victorian era, and very generally it’s about choosing between one’s principles and sexual relationships.

I’m going to admit to my philistine streak here and confess that during the play I sort of catalogued the issues they ploughed through – desire vs. principles, learning skills to be independent, the payoff of hard-edged activism, internal backbiting, creating dignity for women’s ways of being and doing, free love-ism vs. no-sex-please feminism – and I thought ok, so what? Preaching to the converted, right? They didn’t pose any new questions or answer any old ones. But I really enjoyed the play, and I think that’s because I related to it – because none of this was news. It’s just nice to see things put in a human context, and whereas when you face it in your life, you have a position in the issues, at the theatre, you’re permitted to get right into the minds of all the players.

On that note, I have a question for the rest of you who went to see it: Why did Rhoda resist letting the sisters into the school, when she was the one who pushed them to come and check it out?